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By Joe Buscaglia

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Young earns Bills backup reps for the week

by Joe Buscaglia,posted Aug 20 2012 6:35PM

The Buffalo Bills are one step closer to naming their backup quarterback.

"Vince Young has performed well enough in the last two games to warrant more work," head coach Chan Gailey started off on Monday. "He'll get the majority of the work with the two's this week. He'll get most of the work with the second group when they go in on Saturday night. We need to see how he can handle more gameplan, more gametime, more everything."

Young's performance on Friday night against the Minnesota Vikings -- particularly the four-play drive ending in a touchdown for the Bills -- has given the former Titans and Eagles quarterback the leg up in the backup competition. Gailey urged that Young hasn't been awarded anything yet, but said he certainly has the edge in the matter.

"Oh yeah, he's got the edge or we wouldn't have given him more reps. He's made more things happen. You've got to give him credit for that," the head coach said. "We need to see how much he can handle, to see if he can handle the whole load because once you get to the season he doesn't get many reps. So we've got to find out how he can handle all of this."

Alarms were raised when Young, who had been switching daily with Tyler Thigpen as to who received the second team reps, was manning the second unit for the third straight session. Young was with the two's the practice before the Vikings game, the actual Vikings game and then again during Monday's practice.

Through two games of the preseason, Young has completed 13-of-27 passes for 173 yards, setting up a touchdown on his final drive of the second contest. Whereas Thigpen is only 11-of-23 for 94 yards while throwing two interceptions.

"It's not an indictment on Tyler, it's just Vince has done some good things," Gailey said. "We know where Tyler is. We've got to evaluate Vince more."

With the third preseason game being the usual dress rehearsal for most first-string players across the NFL, Young will likely get the majority of playing time not administered to Ryan Fitzpatrick and the first unit.

The Bills take on the Pittsburgh Steelers on Saturday night at Ralph Wilson Stadium.